By C.J. Vetter
KYLE - The Kyle Area Senior Zone (KASZ) recently donated an additional $10,000 to help fund the blueprints of a new senior citizen center in Kyle.
KASZ, under leadership of president Larry Simone, has partnered with Hays County and the city of Kyle to help gather funds for the designing of the center. Both of the partners agreed to contribute $200,000 each, under the condition that KASZ would provide $200,000 worth of funding as well. Including the recent donation, the organization has raised $130,850 so far. Once the goal has been met and the blueprints created, KASZ will work to help get grants and help in the construction.
The designs, which cost $600,000, are the first step in creating a facility capable of hosting large events and venues, as well as, catering to the needs of the senior community.
“We’re gonna help with the brick and mortar once we’re done. We think we owe them that,” Simone said. “As a nonprofit, we can leverage a lot of fundraising and volunteers, and we’ll never stop. But the pressure won’t be as on us as it is now.”
As a community of senior citizens, KASZ mostly relies on donations from local businesses, organization members and their families alongside events such as silent auctions and lunches to gather funds. While the fixed income for many of its members has slowed progress, the growing population of seniors in Kyle has seen the group outgrow its old facility, Krug Activity Center, and create the urgent need for a new one.
“It’s not really the cost of the building,” Simone said. “It’s how a city takes care of its seniors. If you take care of seniors, they’re not in the hospitals, they’ll give back more, they’re healthier. We’re building this for the next generation too.”
The current floor plan calls for a building four times the size of the Krug Activity Center, a commercially certified kitchen and more accessible meeting areas for the disabled. It will also be tied into the Vybe trail network, connecting it to the nearby Tobias Elementary and the larger community of Hays County. The facility will also be available to be rented out for private events such as weddings.
“We’re talking about doing intergenerational programming, not only with Tobias, but in general to bring the community together,” said Ellen Ermis, KASZ communications coordinator. “There’s a lot of grandparents that are here specifically because their kids are here.”
When asked why a new community center for seniors is so important, KASZ vice president Betty Conley said that it helps give people who have lost their spouses or partners a place to do things and noted that loneliness is a big issue, so senior centers could help alleviate isolation.
“Seniors nowadays are living longer, but there’s nowhere for them to really go and do anything. And we want to be involved, we want to volunteer in the community, we want to play our games, we want to have our dances,” Conley said. “We’re still alive. Just because we’re older doesn’t mean it’s the end.”
For more information, or those wishing to donate to the project, visit kasz.org.
